Distraction
by Aeria
Summary: Kate’s point of view added as Chapter Two. Late one night in the bullpen, Gibbs realized that his life revolves around distraction while Kate reminisces over her latest boyfriend. [KIBBS]
1. Bare Feet

Title: Distraction  
  
Rating: G (wow, that's a first)  
  
Summary: Just trying my hand at my new ship, Kibbs.  
  
A/N: Gotta warn you, living in Australia, I've only seen the first three episodes so I'm not too hot at characterisation right now. And there are probably a few details which are incorrect but I wanted to try it out. Hope you like it, will be a stand alone, I think. Please review, I always love feedback, even criticism.  
  
He sat at his desk, fingers locked together beneath his chin as he hunched over, staring at the open folder and the words which had been out of focus for the last twenty minutes. It had been a long day, uneventful but still busy. Nothing which could actually be called interesting but enough paperwork and loose ends to keep them without an excuse for leaving too early. Not that he would have wanted one.  
  
Agent Gibbs didn't look for an excuse to go home often. After all there was little to go home to, unless you counted the half-completed boat in his basement. That was something he enjoyed, the distraction that working with his hands provided meant that he didn't have to think. Not about the dead men he dealt with at work, good and bad. Not about any one of his three ex- wives. And not about...other things. He liked his boat; it was his, a distraction, an obsession, the only thing to ever go home for.  
  
And on most nights, Gibbs did, when everyone else was slowly leaking out the door, he'd eventually rise and walk out of the bullpen without looking back. But not tonight. It was well after the time he usually left, and a Friday at that, the one day he would often find himself aching as he waited for his time to go home with the knowledge that he wouldn't have to deal with work for a few days. Unless of course an assignment popped up in which case he'd be there in a minute.  
  
But tonight, a Friday, late on a Friday, was different. He didn't want to leave. The pull of his boat wasn't as strong as the pull to stay. Another computer blinked off and he looked up to see another agent wandering off to her weekend, on the way she waved to a few of the other agents, wishing them a good weekend.  
  
Taking a deep breath and reminding himself about the still-unread file in front of him, he sat back in the chair and ran his hands over his face. He reached for the ever-constant cup of coffee but found it stone-cold at first sip.  
  
That meant he'd run out of distractions. Funny, that was what his world was made up of, distractions, his work distracted him from his personal life, his boat distracted him from his work and right now he was being distracted from his boat. His current lack of distraction had brought him to focus on the woman that was keeping him from his boat. A half-smile flittered over his face as he watched her across the few meters that separated them.  
  
Kate, or Katie as he called her every so often. The newest addition to his team: demanding, obnoxious, intelligent...driven, vibrant, beautiful. He'd admitted it to himself even before he had hired her. She had it all going for her, except, perhaps, that strong mind which he was sure would scare away a heck of a lot of guys. But not him. He wasn't prepared to go near her for another reason; relationships like that, did not work in environments like this. That was the mantra he repeated to himself at least ten times a day.  
  
Every time she made some smart-assed comeback, nine times out of ten aimed at Tony, every time she gave that smile accompanied by the arch of an eyebrow, telling Gibbs that she knew something. When she argued with him, when she managed to find something to grin at, when she laughed and even now, when she was just sitting there, reading something off her computer screen, hair slightly messed up after thirteen hours at the office while one hand held her chin up and the other fiddled with a pen.  
  
He wasn't stupid, he knew this was okay. He was allowed to watch her, allowed to think about her whenever he had a spare minute, as long as nothing ever happened or anyone found out, it was fine. He was confident she hadn't noticed that he watched her more than he watched anyone else, so she had no idea.  
  
With that thought, Gibbs let his eyes stray from his profile view of her face down her neck, her brown tresses ending at the point just over her shoulder blades. She was sitting on the edge of her seat and from his point of view he was able to trace a line with his eyes down the rest of her body, over her skirt-covered thighs and bare calves, ever-perfect, and down to her feet. At some time in the last two hours she'd slipped off her shoes and her feet now curved in beneath her chair.  
  
He sighed. It was a real shame they worked together. He glanced at the clock and did a double take, it really was getting late: if he could just escape the distraction he could go home. He let his eyes trace back up her legs, past her waist back up to her face. He was surprised to find her eyes staring back at him, slightly narrowed.  
  
Calmly, he stood up, still managing to remain graceful; he grabbed his coat and headed directly for the lift that would take him home. He didn't look back; this was just another event to never mention again, at least not outside the parameters of his own mind. 


	2. Strategic Placement

Title: Status Symbol  
  
Rating: G  
  
Summary: Just trying my hand at my new ship, Kibbs.  
  
A/N: Thank you for the reviews, they were great to wake up to. Because of all the positive feed-back I've decided to do Kate's pov as requested by Beach chickJASSNL. Hope this is still okay, I'm still very unsure about my characterization and spent all of yesterday (Saturday here) trying to find the first three eps on tape. I managed to find two, which is impressive since I don't remember taping any of them and watched both just to try to get a better handle of the characters. Thank you all for the encouragement, I hope you enjoy this update.  
  
Kate was beginning to think that she actually preferred the work at NCIS over her old Secret Service job. The cases were more interesting, she didn't have to suck up to anyone and she actually felt like she was doing something productive rather that just chasing her own bureaucratic tail. Plus she was out in the field. She'd never admit it to anyone but she'd recently discovered that the rush she got from getting the chance to run around with her gun, wear boots and, in all, get her hands dirty, was incredible. She loved it.  
  
Their most recent case had been wrapped up the day before and she'd entered the bullpen at nine that morning knowing she had a long trawl though the resulting paperwork ahead of her. And now, after many, many hours of toiling over her computer, she had managed to not only complete the required paperwork for that case but had caught up with every other task she'd managed to avoid over the past two weeks, and that could only mean one thing. It was time to go home.  
  
Glancing at her watch she found the second hand ticking by in slow motion, if she was honest with herself, going home really didn't appeal to her today. She'd had to call her latest boyfriend two hours before to tell him she was 'once again blowing him off' as he put it. And she didn't really have an excuse, just passing it off as being because of 'work.' Apparently that didn't cut it with men these days and he'd promptly dumped her over the phone and told her he'd have his stuff out of her apartment before she got home. Then he'd hung up.  
  
Another woman might have cried or sulked, or at least felt a little bit bad, but she'd only been dating Rob for a month or so and in that time there really hadn't been much going on. Kate always found herself too busy. If she was honest with herself, she didn't really care that he dumped her. She'd been silently hoping he would and now she didn't have to worry about making the time to see him. Her work was her life...or her life was her work, whichever way she looked at it, it made sense.  
  
She'd had enough of having to keep a boyfriend. It was simply too much trouble and it wasn't even like she'd enjoyed the company of the last how- ever-many she'd had. They were like status symbols, her saying to the world, 'Look, I have a social life!' But this was the last one. Or so she told herself.  
  
In the darkest recesses of her mind a little voice reminded her that was exactly what she had said after David...and after Mark...and after Daniel. She sighed, there would be another to come, there always was. And he would always have a boring name. Her eyes flickered away from the computer screen she'd been 'reading' off to the photo frame to her right, containing a picture of her mother.  
  
Her eyes went to the image that it was reflecting, not the actual picture. He'd probably kill her if he ever realized just how strategically it had been positioned on her desk. Looking at it now, she had an imprecise view of her boss: the coffee-addicted grump of the bullpen, Agent Gibbs. Now he had an interesting name.  
  
She flexed her neck to the side, getting a sharp crack out of it as she tried to stop herself from thinking things she shouldn't. Not that she ever would. Going back to the reflected image she squinted as she tried to register just what his eyes were focussed on.  
  
Shocked, she realized that he was, for lack of a better phrase, checking her out. For a moment she thought about turned around to make sure she hadn't been mistaken but then she paused, her whole body freezing as she silently wished she hadn't taken her shoes off an hour ago. If he was in a bad mood, he could easily fire her over such an unprofessional move. And she wasn't wrong, he was watching her, she checked the reflection again and saw him sigh. She watched, eyes narrowed trying to make out just a little more detail, as he looked in the general direction of the clock. And then back to her. She gritted her teeth, debating what she could possibly do.  
  
Ditching any hope she had of remaining completely still until her boss chose to stop looking at her so attentively, she slowly angled her head around in his direction. Apparently he didn't notice and, in the few seconds she had, Kate noticed the small smile playing at his lips as his eyes slowly slid up her form until their eyes locked together. Her own narrowed brown ones meeting his piercing blue ever-so-slightly-startled ones in the middle of the expanse between them.  
  
She watched, somewhat bemused, as he stood up and grabbed his coat from the back of his chair in one quick, fluid motion and headed towards the elevator. He didn't look back at her, not once, while she couldn't tear her eyes from his departing form. What, she wondered, had just happened?  
  
Please review, I love to hear what you guys think and am open to any ideas you have to improve my writing/plot lines/anything. 


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